Arsenal Strike New Kit Deal With Puma Worth 170m
Arsenal have once again proven just how big they are on a global scale with the revelation that the Gunners have struck a kit deal with sports brand Puma. This new deal, which will be the biggest in England, reportedly gives Arsenal a whopping £170m, or £30m per year. This new arrangement will see the end of the long standing relationship between Arsenal and Nike, and while some fans might rather the kits were Nike branded, you simply cannot ignore these kinds of money.

The deal is something of a statement of intent from Arsenal, coming so soon after the announcement of the new £150m five year shirt sponsorship agreement. It is believed that this new deal will further boost Arsene Wenger’s summer transfer kitty. Figures of a £70m transfer spend are being bandied about for this summer, and while most Gooners will choose to remain no more than cautiously optimistic, any kind of optimism is not something that comes naturally to us.

However, it should be noted that a huge transfer spend is no guarantee of success, and the club’s priorities have not changed. We still desperately need to secure 4th place, if for no other reason so that we can spend our transfer kitty on players of a Champion’s League standard. There are some exceptions, but in general the kind of top quality target that Arsenal go for is only available to those clubs that can offer Europe’s premier competition (and a shedload of cash) as the great big dangling carrot.

It remains to be seen how much influence Puma will have on the shirt designs, but their recent efforts with other clubs (most notably Dortmund) have proven extremely popular. Ivan Gazidis, Arsenal’s chief executive, is proving to be reasonably good at his job but he is still a long way from being be a very popular figure in the club, and although these sponsorship deals are some way from matching Man Utd’s truly global sponsorship model, these are very big steps in the right direction.